"We had passed unnoticed all through France, the French being inured to war…but here [Riviere] the whole town had turned out to meet us with flags and flowers." From Bayon's memoir, "A Thrilling Adventure", pg.3

After the fighting in World War I ended, Edward Bayon, formerly a staff sergeant with
the Army, married a French girl and decided to stay in France when he signed on with the
American Graves Registration service. In April 1923, he was charged with taking a
barge laden with the caskets of 952 American soldiers through the canals of France,
Holland and Belgium, on their way back home. Bayon recorded his memory of this
singular event in the one document in his collection. He was not prepared for the
remarkable reception that the Belgians provided him on his mission.